Camera Talk

My first SLR wasn't exactly mine. My oldest brother had gotten a Yashica Electro TL kit (I think it was) from our parents for graduation and after a few years he lost interest in photography as grown up life took hold. I had the bug bad and had been using a Kodak 110 through JR High and part of high school before I begged to use his camera since it was just gathering dust. I think it had a 35, 50 and a 105mm and I loved it! Needless to say, he never got it back and I used it steady until, unfortunately, life got in the way for me as well. I'm not sure what ever happened to her, one of the ex's yard sales maybe. Anyway, after my divorce I knew it was something that was still in the blood, so I saved and got me a brand new Nikon N75. I do still have that one and my Nikon brood has grown just a bit.

a revue branded chinon that my grandfather owned.capable and basic. and the first i actually bought meself .....Pentax MG.

My first SLR was a Topcon Unirex. I bought it with the hard earned money of a vacation job when still at high school. I was sold by the fact that you could switch between 'Average' and 'Spot' metering - the light cell for spot metering was situated in the center of the mirror !
After a few years my father offered to buy it from me to help me fund the purchase of the then new Nikon FM, which I still have today (but is on retirement now)
The Topcon Unirex was passed on further and I don't know where it is now, but I'd give money to have my 'own' Unirex back. I bought another one on evilbay a few years ago, but got rid of it after it developed irregular issues with the mirror, which also functions as a light shield in the Unirex.

The first one I used was my father's Miranda; not sure of the model, it's long gone. After a year or two of using it, he bought me an Olympus OM-10FC (that is, it had the little plug-in module that allowed full-manual or shutter-priority operation) that I used heavily until life intervened and I put photography aside for 10-15 years. Came back to photography in the mid-2000s, only digital by then, but started mixing film back in a few years ago. Got the OM-10 back out and it still works perfectly.

Canon AE1. Had it about 2 years by which time it had done the two things AE1's became (in)famous for doing - the battery door cracked and had to be taped to hold it shut and it started squealing every time the shutter was released. Traded it in on a Nikon FE.

Following from Davila's post, I remember drooling over a Nikkormat. I was pretty well cash-free in the early 1970s, and not in the sense that term has today! I went to a dentist in about 1974 and he mentioned he was selling his Nikkormat because it was too complicated for him. He wanted forty or fifty dollars but I didn't even have that (cough cough, after my dentist bill...). That was about five years before I bought my (not much more expensive) Zenit E.

I bought a Nikkorex Auto 35 in August, 1967 for about $100, new. Allegedly built by Mamiya, the Nikkorex had a very fine 48mm/2 Nikkor lens with between-the-lens shutter. Reliability was always an issue, the mirror had a bad habit of hanging up. But the quality of the lens made a Nikon lover of me. I still have it, with a jammed up mirror and shutter.

Also following on Dave's post, I remembering going to the Air Force Base Exchange and looking longingly at the Nikkormat FT3. On an Airman Basic salary, no way could I afford that.

I did eventually buy into the Nikon system, but by then the FT3 was old hat. I bought an FT3 a few years ago. It is one sturdy and excellent camera. I'm sure that I would have loved it, had I bought it back in the 1970s.

First SLR was one I bought myself just 10 years ago.
From the first roll:



Nikon FM3A, stock $100 50mm lens.

My first camera was a used Kodak Retina 1 that I bought in 1954 from a local camera store that has long since gone to that great film plane in the sky.

At the time I had no idea of the significance of that model, and its worldwide effects on film photography. I was, however, just fascinated by all the fine, intricate machining on it, and I had never before even seen a camera that had manual settings on it, as anyone that I knew with a camera had only simple box cameras, so I had a great time listening to all the precise little clicking noises that it made when in use. I had a great time running around photographing my friends and relatives.

Somewhere along all the intervening years it has disappeared. For nostalgia's sake I recently bought another one from Pacific Rim, but I just don't feel the same old magic emanating from it. I think what I really need is the "II" model, as I now feel lost without a rangefinder. Then maybe the old magic will come back . . .